Page 1

Jessikah

Day after day, I spent applying so much cover up to the bruises on places spread across my body that my make-up bill was almost as large as a high-end car payment.

If anyone decided to look closely at my collection of cover up, primer and concealer, they would know I was buying these products because I was covering more than just my face.

They would know that something was wrong.

Not just wrong, but disastrously dangerous.

Because I wasn’t living. I was hiding so I could survive.

“Jessikah, where the fuck are you?” the man I called my husband screamed as he entered the house through the garage.

He did this every single day. “You know the fucking rules!” he shouted again, as he slammed his lunch cooler down on the counter, cracking the corner of the counter and lunch box.

Just another thing that will become my fault.

Knowing the rules wasn’t the issue. I knew them alright. They were pounded into my skin every day. Any time he thought I had forgotten, he would make sure I remembered. He would use objects, hands and feet. It all depended on how badly he thought I broke the rules that always changed in his head.

Hanging my head as I look at myself in the mirror. Could this be the time he finally ends my life? Taking a deep breath, I leave the safety of the bathroom and slowly creep down the stairs. Purposely avoiding the spots I knew would creak if I stepped on them.

“Fucking bitch has nothing done. I warned her that if dinner wasn’t ready, I would end her,” he growls, as he stands in the kitchen and looks around the room.

He used to be so handsome, loving and understanding.

My Nathaniel Boarden, a construction worker whose family owns the business he works for.

I don’t understand when things started to change, or why they did.

All I know is for the last six months, I have been his punching bag—mentally, physically and verbally.

In his eyes, I am a useless waste of space.

There have been plenty of times that in his rage his hand has strangled me to the point I thought it was over.

“There you are, you dumb cunt. It seems we have to go over the rules again. Did you forget what happened the last time?” he asks, pulling on his belt with the metal eyelets lining the entire length. I know what is coming, but there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop it.

He points to the kitchen table. No words, no direction, just points and expects me to know what he wants, or how he wants me positioned.

His eyes narrow, the hardline of his mouth tightens.

He wants me to bend over the table, to pull my skirt up and allow him to do whatever his sick and twisted mind has dreamed up for this punishment.

But I can’t. I need to be free of him, to show him he can’t break me.

Survival is my endgame, and it needs to end soon.

“I-I-I know the rules. Dinner is in the oven. There are six beers in the fridge, and they have been there since twelve noon. All your laundry is done, folded, and put away in the correct spots. The new version of your dirty magazines are in the den. I was in the bathroom making sure I was presentable for you. Are you happy?” I state, crossing my left leg in front of my right and placing my hands behind my back.

Lowering my head so my eyes stay cast downward to the floor.

He has drilled this position into my head since one magazine told him that all women should appreciate the men who choose them by obeying their every wish.

“Naw, bitch. You were supposed to be at the table and my dinner on it. Now assume the position,” he barks at me, folding his belt in half and snapping it together, making me jump.

Slowly walking over to the table, I bend over and put my head on the surface. Using my hands, I lift the skirt I have on and then spread my arms across the table. The thing about these beatings is I never know what kind of torture he has in mind.

He circles me left to right and back again.

Snapping the belt as he stalks his prey.

Then the true torture begins. It’s not the physical punishment he dishes out.

The beatings I have become used to, the mental abuse and verbal assaults all just part of the same old shtick that he does.

What scares me is how unstable and unhinged he has become.

After the beatings and just before he starts with the verbal and mental assault, he uses his sex organ to make sure I know who is in control.

“My dear, you know this is for your own good. I need to make sure you understand the laws of the house,” he states, as his arm swings back and the belt whips back, then the snap of the leather against my skin.

I bite my tongue and close my eyes tightly.

If I make a noise or cry, the beatings just get harder, and the assault becomes a sexual game for him. One he gets off on.

He walks into the kitchen and throws open the stove and reaches in. I don’t remind him it’s hot. Because maybe he can feel the bite of pain like I do, and have done, every day since I married this monster exactly one year ago.

“Bitch!” his cry of pain makes me smile inwardly.

“Now you know the pain that I feel every single day,” I think to myself. I should have paid attention to him, kept my eyes on what he was doing. I didn’t, and I suffered for it.

Turning my head back to the man in the kitchen.

I watch in horror as he grabs an oven glove, puts it on, and then the blistering hot pan that had a homemade tray of stuffed shells was grabbed and brought over to me.

He lifts my top and places the pan directly onto my skin.

I scream, the smell of burnt flesh mixed with my cries for help fill the room.

I pleaded with anyone who was listening or could hear me, even the man upstairs, to make it stop.

I didn’t care how; I just wanted the pain to end.

As I cry from the pain, he continues his torturous assault on my body. He broke every second finger before my left wrist. I tried to get away, but he grabbed my shoulder and popped it out of its socket. The pain shot through my body, causing my stomach to revolt and I vomit all over the floor.

“Please. Stop,” I beg. I need him to leave me alone. He didn’t. He continued his assault on my body. The pain from the burn on my lower back was nothing compared to the vicious blows he was landing, causing me to close my eyes and let the pain take over and steal me from consciousness.

***

“Jasmine, we need to contact the Rescue Our Youth and Ladies. They need to come and move her. This is the sixth time in as many days she has been admitted to the hospital. Only this time, she is worse, a lot worse,” a quiet voice says from beside me.

I try to turn my head, but the pain makes me scream. Only I can’t. Because not only did he beat me to within an inch of my life. He made sure I wouldn’t be able to talk. He broke my jaw, as well as everything else he thought I didn’t need.

“Mmmp mmm,” I mumble. I tried to beg for help, but he took that capability away from me.

This was by far the worst. Before I would always come to in the hospital with a cast on and a speech about how abuse kills.

This time, I can’t move. The machines are beeping, and I know the air pumping up my nose is from tubes.

The pain every time my lungs take in air lets me feel the little life I still have in my body.

“Oh, Rose, her eyes. They are open,” the one I assume is Jasmine states, and leans in closer. Her sweet pea smell taking over the air being ushered up my nose. Tears fall down my cheeks as a muffled sob leaves my throat. My hands clenching and unclenching in the international call for help.

“Oh, sweet girl, you need to leave that man. He is going to kill you,” Rose whispers, leaning in. I try to nod, but the pain is too much, forcing my eyes closed.

“Don’t move your head. If you want us to get you out, blink twice. If you…” she doesn’t finish as I blink twice. Then twice more, and again. I need to save myself because no one else will.

“Okay sweet girl, we will pull the doctor in and get you moved to another room until R.O.Y.A.L shows up. You are in safe hands now,” Jasmine mumbles. I remember them talking about something that helps domestic violence victims. Was that who she was talking about?

“I am going to give you some pain meds so you can sleep. When you wake up, you won’t be here anymore. You will be safe and someplace the monster who did this to you won’t know,” Rose says as she presses the button on my drip and the pain begins to ease.

“Freedom. Finally. I can now move forward with my life, away from my abuser, and start over someplace where no one knows me,” are my final thoughts before sleep drags me under, taking away the pain, the reality, and the life that made me feel like this weak woman.